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BLANKbottle The Bomb 2021

R390.00 inc. VAT
"This wine started way back - I bottled a straight 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon from a friend’s farm. The wine was big, but I loved it. After bottling, the Department of Agriculture came back with the final analysis. An alcohol of 16.14% - GOODNESS?! I stacked the wine in the back of the warehouse, not sure what to do with it. I then had a tasting at the Hinterhofkabuff with a German guy called Martin Baulmann, who subsequently became my agent in Germany. We tasted all my wines and at the end he asked me if I had something big for him to taste. "How do you mean; BIG?", I asked. "In colour, extraction, tannin?..."." Like in 15% alcohol...", he replied. "I think I have something even better for you" I said. So I opened a still unlabelled bottle and poured him a glass of what I was planning to name Midnight Call. He loved it and wanted to buy everything. For those of you who do not know Martin: He has a big frame, laughs loudly, and lives large. So afterwards I sat in the Hinterhofkabuff drinking a glass, thinking of this very big guy that loved this very loud wine. It seemed natural to change the name to THE BOMB." Winemaker's notes

BLANKbottle Brave 2021

R390.00 inc. VAT
Scared is what you feel, BRAVE is what you do 2021! This is a new wine. - Winemaker's notes

BLANKbottle Pat Bird 2021

R330.00 inc. VAT
Story to come soon. A 100% Stellenbosch Petit Verdot.

BLANKbottle Engelesig 2021

R390.00 inc. VAT
"This is a new wine, it is a Cab/Cab Franc from a little farm called Angles view, Helderberg - home to singer song writer Lesley Rae Dowling." -Winemaker's notes

BLANKbottle Pierre Le Cois 2021

R390.00 inc. VAT
"The X-factor - The PIERRE-LE-COIS-EFFECT as I call it. The guy and nowadays often, the girl in the bakkie. The eyes who look holistically at the big picture and apply knowledge and experience within the comfort of like minded wise minds - enabling the application of practices to guide these vines to the ultimate expression of themselves. Season upon season. " - Winemaker's notes

BLANKbottle ISA – 42 2021

R390.00 inc. VAT
"In short this is a 100% Merlot from the Helderberg - Stellenbosch. The resurrection of one of the first BLANKBOTTLE wines - in its original uniform." - Winemaker's notes

BLANKbottle Pseudonym 2022

R315.00 inc. VAT
"The kind of wine that would appeal to red Burgundy drinkers looking for a few cheaper alternatives to their favourite tipple, this ethereal, delicate, layered Cinsault comes from a 73-year-old vineyard in Darling. Fermented with 70% whole bunches, it's a refined delight, all red cherry, raspberry, pomegranate flavours underpinned by the grip and slight austerity of decomposed granite soils." - Tim Atkin MW

BLANKbottle Little William 2022

R379.99 inc. VAT
"The wine is named after my chance meeting with a little boy called William on the Witzenberg mountains. It’s been a fascinating story from the start, but became even more bizarre at the end of last year, with another chance meeting. Little William reloaded! In January 2016, I was driving back from a tiny little vineyard in the Koue Bokkeveld (Ceres Plateau). Cruising along at the 100km/h speed limit, I came to a very winding stretch of road leading towards the Witzenberg pass. Suddenly, for a split second, I thought I saw something in the middle of the road. I had just come through a super sharp bend and had to jump on the brakes with both feet. When I finally got my 470 000-km-on-the-clock Toyota to stop, there, on the white line in the middle of the road, stood a little blonde boy. I guessed him around a year and a half old. He was in his nappies and had a white T-shirt on, perfectly camouflaged on the white line. Unsure of what to do once I'd taken him out of the road, I thought it a good plan to prompt him and see which direction he takes off in (with myself of course right behind). About 200 meters further along the road he (we) crossed a little bridge heading towards the other side of the canal. He turned up a dirt road which led to a farmhouse about 300 meters up a hill. Keeping up to his snail-like pace, we arrived at the house more or less 10 minutes later (in my experience with farm dogs, it wouldn’t have been wise to carry him). When the gardener saw us approaching, he called out to a woman at the house and judging by her reaction, she must’ve been his mom and he must’ve been missing for a while. It was a bit of an emotional and chaotic environment so, knowing he was safe, I just turned around and left without introducing myself. So each time I present a tasting with Little William wine as part of the line-up, I get the same question: “Why is it called, Little William?”, followed almost without fail by: “What does the family have to say about you calling a wine, Little William?” My answer is always the same: “I never went back, they don't even know the wine exists. But I am convinced there will be this one day where I’d be sitting at some local bar in Knysna, drinking a beer all by myself when the young guy next to me turns to me and introduces himself as William from Ceres." And I’ll be able to tell him: “Eendag, lank, lank gelede het hierdie oom jou lewe gered!” For 4 years I had the privilege of telling the story of little William. Until last year. When Chapter 2 happened. In November, we took our youngest son for a minor operation at Panorama Mediclinic, Tygerberg, Cape Town. The lady at reception looked at us with a puzzled look on her face. We later learnt that there had been a mistake on the paperwork and they were under the impression that he was an adult. They had subsequently booked him into an adult ward. The man next to him had drunk a cup of coffee at 6:00am that morning with milk in. His operation therefore had to be postponed and he obviously missed his theatre time slot. He had to wait almost the whole day for the next slot. He and Sebastian eventually left for the theatre at more or less the same time. I went to get us a cup of coffee, and as she always does, Aneen started making conversation with the milk-in-the-coffee guy’s wife. On my return Aneen said: ”They are from Ceres, tell her the little William story.” I cringed, thinking: "Why would I do that??" I tried to let her comment slide and filled the awkward silence with useless words. We carried on with the small talk and she ended up telling us that she is a vet and her husband is a farmer. “Where do you farm in Ceres?”, I asked. “In the Witzenberg mountains, on a farm called Blah-blah-blah”, she answered. And, as you’ve probably guessed by now, that was the name of the farm where I dropped little William that morning. It started dawning on me that it might be my Knysna-bar-thing moment happening in a totally bizarre, different way. “Do you have a son called William?” I asked. “No”, she replied, “but my nephew is called William and they live on the same farm, in the house next to the road.” We did the sums and he would’ve been exactly 1 and a half years at the time. So it turns out it wasn't a beer-in-hand pub in Knysna, but a coffee-in-hand hospital in Cape Town. I should've listened to Aneen right from the start... so I told her the whole story and she phoned her sister-in-law. “Did you ever lose William on the farm?” she asked (I don’t think that’s the type of story you volunteer to tell your extended family if not prompted). “Yes”, she said. “There was this one day…” PS: This incident made me think about everyone’s life stories. I’m convinced that these kind of things happen to everyone. The difference is that I just happened to call a wine Little William, and I have a reason to re-tell this story. If I didn’t, I would’ve possibly only re-told the story once or twice, but I can imagine how the finer details could've gotten lost between profit margins and VAT. I have a responsibility to convey the story in an honest and factual way. You know how easily a story gets blurry. So each time I drive the road, I recheck my facts: Where exactly did William stand? Distances? The name of the farm? The story then became part of our story. And that day when the lady mentioned Ceres, the first thing Aneen thought about was the boy in the road." Winemaker's notes

BLANKbottle Orbitofrontal Cortex 2022

R310.01 inc. VAT
BLANKbottle Orbitofrontal Cortex 2022, "The barrels I like", is how Pieter Walser describes the selection process for this Chenin Blanc and Verdelho based blend with 46% Clairette Blanche, Grenache Blanc, Marsanne, Roussanne and a soupçon of Viognier. Lightly skin fermented, it has top notes of wild flowers and wet stone, citrus, pear and grapefruit flavours and a finish that lingers on the palate. Delicious."- Tim Atkin MW

BLANKbottle “Retirement @ 65” 2022

R320.00 inc. VAT
"Retirement @ 65? Let's hope that's not in Pieter Walser's plans, so that he can go on making wines like this Darling assemblage of Cinsault with 44% Syrah. Fermented with around 50% whole bunches, this is "almost a field blend", with plum, bramble and red berry fruit, lots of zip and minerality and sinewy tannins." - Tim Atkin MW

BLANKbottle My Koffer 2022

R315.00 inc. VAT
"One of two remarkable Cinsaults in the BLANKbottle line up, My Köffer comes from a parcel of river stones in Breedekloof, picked in three stages to maximise complexity. Bolder and broader than Pseudonym, it has impressive concentration and depth, savoury tannins, some clove and pepper spices and layers of plum, strawberry and black cherry. Delicious." Tim Atkin MW

BLANKbottle The Pink Bomb 2022

R255.00 inc. VAT
"The Bomb range (if one could call it that), started with my German importer, Martin Baulmann - a larger-than-life personality who loves equally larger-than-life framed wines. First up was The BOMB (red), then The WHITE BOMB and now, yes you guessed it, The PINK BOMB. To produce wines with this structure, you need vineyards where the grapes have the opportunity of extended “hang-time” (the amount of days the bunches spend attached to the vine) - a spot where they have intensity of sunlight combined with a lower average day temperature and cool nights. This unique combination enables the fruit to ripen at a slower pace, thus retaining their freshness and acid. The higher above sea-level you go, the closer you get. A fresh, vibrant wine with punch! Like I said, not what you would’ve expected." - Winemaker's notes

BLANKbottle Hinterhofkabuff 2022

R295.00 inc. VAT
"Sourced from the same grower as the Jan Niemand Riesling - this vineyard uses vertical shoot positioning - this has a little more weight, presence and concentration. Showing lots of extract and depth, it combines apple and lime flavours with a hint of peach and 5.27 grams of residual sugar." - Tim Atkin MW

BLANKbottle Empire 2021

R310.01 inc. VAT
"Called BLANKbottle Empire because all the grapes come from Stellenbosch, this is a medley of Cabernet Sauvignon with 29% Cabernet Franc and 14% Merlot. Mint and green tea aromas are a prelude to a palate of cassis, bramble and coffee bean and fine-boned tannins." - Tim Atkin MW

BLANKbottle Familiemoord 2022

R330.00 inc. VAT
The story behind Familiemoord - Family Murder - deserves a note all to itself, but space is at a premium in this report! This daringly refined Piekenierskloof Grenache from Braam Marais' farm has flavours of raspberry, hibiscus and rooibos tea, lots of stony minerality from sandstone and granite soils and a tug of underlying tannins." - Tim Atkin MW

BLANKbottle B.I.G. 2020

R310.01 inc. VAT
"The Swartland Revolution was exactly that: a revolution initiated by Swartland farmers which turned the premium wine market upside down. Suddenly premium higher-priced Bordeaux-style Stellenbosch wines had to share the stage with premium Rhone-style Swartland blends. And so it happened then, that for the past 8 years, the media stuck Cabernet Sauvignon in a dark and dusty corner - not “cool” enough. As some of you might know, at the moment I make wine from 30 varieties. I thought it a bright idea to do something for the neglected, fallen-from-grace Cabernet Sauvignon. I subsequently identified vineyards with vastly different heights above sea level: 7 near Somerset West (at 32 to 391 m), 2 on the outskirts of Tulbagh (both at 310 m) and 2 in the Witzenberg’s Koue Bokkeveld (at 734 and 755m). When I first started speaking to the masters of Cabernet here at the Southernmost tip of Africa, the first thing mentioned by most was the dreaded Greenness in Cabernet Sauvignon - a very unwelcome herbaceous / vegetative character. This develops due to high levels of Pyrazines present in the wine - something that's determined by the ripeness level of the grapes. The longer the grape bunches get exposed to sunlight during the growing period, the less Pyrazines - resulting in less greenness in the end product - reducing herbaceousness and amplifying fruit. Here in South Africa we have a unique situation: although we have plenty of sunshine, it is hot and dry. In most instances, by the time the grapes are ripe for picking, it hasn't had long enough sun exposure for the Pyrazines to get to an acceptable level. And if you leave it on the vine for longer, the sugar level gets too high. These sugars are then transformed during fermentation into alcohol resulting in rather high alcoholic wines. So in general, Cabernet creators are in fact chased by the Green Monster. Defended by some, feared by most. What confuses me, though, is that one could argue that this greenness is a stylistic characteristic of wines closer to the ocean, which makes it acceptable. Or does it? Where the exact point lies where herbaceousness turns into greenness - I am not sure. That’s why I decided to make a Cabernet Sauvignon led blend and identified 9 vineyards from different heights above sea levels. The closest vineyard to the ocean is 3km and the furthest 3 hours drive. We made them all separately and aged them all in French oak for one and a half years - picked mainly when we thought the grapes tasted best. Interestingly enough, the first vineyard on the Helderberg ripened in late February whereas the last vineyard in Ceres Plateau (about 3 hours drive from the first) reached optimum ripeness on 22 April - 100 days into harvest and also the very last grapes to hit the cellar." - Winemaker's notes

BLANKbottle Familiemoord Non-Vintage Magnum

R630.00 inc. VAT
"In 2013, I released a wine called Familiemoord - a wine about the extraordinary but true story of how the police thought I killed my son and buried him in a shallow grave in the vacant property next to our house. The Cape Argus' article on 11 May 2013 about the incident titled “The mystery of the boy in the sandpit” serves as this wine’s label. Don’t worry, my son is alive and well and is turning 14 in September - 7 years after I “killed” him. This wine has generated the most reaction of any wine I have ever produced - and not for any of the reasons a winemaker would hope for. In fact, most people were totally oblivious as to the terroir (Swartland) or cultivar (Grenache noir) of the 2013 vintage! Some countries were uncomfortable with the name, so in 2015 I stopped producing it. But in 2018 when the dust has settled Familiemoord came back and this is the release of the 2019 - which in this case is not a 2019 but a non vintage… A blend of Wellington Grenache, Elgin Pinot and Darling Cinsaut. When it comes to Familiemoord, having all the components of a similar vintage are not that important to me. The 2019 vintage Grenache was a little bit lighter than usual. I had in barrel some 2018 and a little bit of that made the Grenade component a little bit plusher and when you mix different vintages the wine needs to be labelled as a non-vintage.The Grenache fermented whole clusters in an open top fermentation vessel. The 2018 component is from a trellised vineyard in Wellington where the 2019 is from a bush Vine Organically Certified Wellington Vineyard. The Pinot noir from Elgin were fermented 50% whole cluster and the Cinsaut from darling, 100% whole clusters. The fine crunchy tannins that come from the stems give this rather low in acid wine a sense of freshness." - Winemaker Note

BLANKbottle Empire Strikes Back 2021

R280.00 inc. VAT
"The name of this wine is a reference to the renaissance of Stellenbosch, which is the origin of this assemblage of Verdelho with 62% Chenin Blanc, Marsanne and Roussanne. Old wood and concrete fermented, it has pear, patisserie and clementine flavours, fine texture and the freshness that's a feature of Pieter Walser's whites. 2022-26." - Tim Atkin MW